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Function   /fˈəŋkʃən/   Listen
Function

verb
1.
Perform as expected when applied.  Synonyms: go, operate, run, work.  "Does this old car still run well?" , "This old radio doesn't work anymore"
2.
Serve a purpose, role, or function.  Synonym: serve.  "The female students served as a control group" , "This table would serve very well" , "His freedom served him well" , "The table functions as a desk"
3.
Perform duties attached to a particular office or place or function.  Synonym: officiate.



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"Function" Quotes from Famous Books



... each division a sanitary section composed of one officer and 25 men, whose function it is to keep an eye on the sanitation of the divisional area, report failure on the part of units to observe the established sanitary regulations, see that the incinerators are operated, have new sources of drinking water tested, look after the bath houses ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... college of Dublin, but his health would not permit him to continue there, or I would have supported him much longer. He has been with me at home above a year, in which time he has gained great strength of body, sufficient, I hope, to enable him for performing the function. Divine Providence, assisted by liberal benefactors, has blest my endeavours, from a small income, to rear a numerous family; and as my time of life renders me now unfit for much future expectancy from this world, I should be glad to see my son settled in ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... arrangements made, in my mind, for a sort of al fresco function, to come off about the time Cornish gets back with our London visitor," he replied, "which ought to knit up the ravelled sleeve better than new. I'm going to dedicate Lynhurst Park to the nymphs and deities of sport—which wrinkled ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick

... never break on you when you are in a hurry," said Pixie politely, and with sundry memories of past occasions when the Major had dressed for a function, while the sounds of his groans and lamentations had been heard without the portals of ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... be so grateful as to refrain from asking for anything else. The military functions performed by men, and so often perverted to most atrocious uses, have never been more than the equivalent for the function of child-bearing imposed by nature upon women. It is not a fanciful nor sentimental, it is an exact and just equivalent. The man who exposes his life in battle, can do no more than his mother did in the hour she bore him. And the functions of maternity persist, ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... of pregnancy has brought about this situation, that many a woman undergoes an agony of symptoms which is only relieved when her monthly function appears. This fear makes the sexual relationship a risk almost outweighing its pleasure. The notoriously "unsafe" character of the contraceptive measures has only diminished this fear, ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... the study of the messages of the prophets we should understand that the meaning of the term prophets may be: (1) A person employed in the public utterance of religious discourse, very much as the preacher of today. This was the most common function of the prophet. Some were reformers while others were evangelists or revivalists. (2) One who performed the function of the scribes and wrote the history and biography and annals of their nations. In this capacity they compiled or wrote large portions of the books ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... country. Old maids naturally were not allowed! And there being none, there were of course no cats to kill the mice that eat the bumble-bees' nests; thus, no bumble-bees to fertilize it, therefore no clover. Old maids have found their function. ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... Conference introduced one innovation. It created a Preliminary Parliament, as the new body came to be known, though its first official title was the Provisional Council of the Republic. This new body was to function as a parliament until the Constituent Assembly convened, when it would give place to whatever form of parliamentary body the Constituent Assembly might create. This Preliminary Parliament and its functions ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... restrictions.[387] Thereafter an effort was made to prevent Negroes from assembling, especially at Christmas dances, which were considered dangerous to the peace of the colony. On one occasion in 1852 to put a stop to such a function a squad of militiamen were ordered out and it fired upon the participants in private dances in their homes, killing many innocent persons. This caused great alarm. The militia was ordered back to the barracks, an investigation was made but no one could tell exactly who ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... function of fearless and reverential critical thought will need to be fulfilled much longer in many quarters. The doctrine of a future life has been made so frightful by the preponderance in it of the elements of material torture and sectarian narrowness, that a ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Nouvelle Heloise, and another in favor of it. Which of the two represented his own opinion? will you venture to take it upon yourself to decide? Which of us could give judgement for Clarissa or Lovelace, Hector or Achilles? Who was Homer's hero? What did Richardson himself think? It is the function of criticism to look at a man's work in all its aspects. We draw up our ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... indeed, it seems to have been generally admitted that trade-union organization was necessary. No practical proposals were, however, made for actually developing such organizations. The interesting part of the discussion came upon the function of trade unionism in future society. The socialists were little concerned as to what might happen to the trade unions in future society, but Professor Hins outlined at that congress the program of the modern syndicalists. It is, therefore, especially interesting to read what Professor Hins ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... an hideous outcry against many of your ministers and guides, complaining and confessing, 'That no one thing hath so conduced to the prejudice of your church of England, and done the separating parties so much service, as the scandalous lives of some that exercise the ministerial function in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... critically, I admit, the thing is as slight as a sketch contained in five-and-thirty pages must be, and certainly it adds nothing to what I have said, in the essays to which it stands preface, on aesthetic theory. The function it is meant to perform—no very considerable one perhaps—is to justify not so much the title as the shape of my book, giving, in the process, a rough sketch of the period with certain aspects of which I am to deal. That the shape needs justification ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... uneven alleys leading to higgledy-piggledy workshops and kilns; cottages transformed into factories and factories into cottages, clumsily, hastily, because nothing matters so long as "it will do;" everywhere something forced to fulfil, badly, the function of something else; in brief, the reign of the slovenly makeshift, shameless, filthy, and picturesque. Edwin himself seemed no tabernacle for that singular flame. He was not merely untidy and dirty—at his ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... knew the house, I observ'd a company of beaux reading the bills o'er the cells, on which was inscrib'd the name of the whore and her price; and others of the same function naked, scuttling it here and there, as if they would not, yet would be seen: When too late I found my self in a bawdy-house, cursing the jade that had trapan'd me thither, I cover'd my head and was just making off through the midst of them, when in the very ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... crowded affair, and both Helene and her husband were glad when that function was finished, and the business of receiving congratulations and saying good-byes was over ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... It will cheer her. Not a dinner-party, my boy, only a plain, comfortable meal, with plenty to eat. Of course she will. Of course she will. Not a Boston social function, you understand. Boston, Stephen, I have always looked upon as the centre of the universe. Our universe, I mean. America for Americans is a motto of mine. Oh, no," he added quickly, "I don't mean a Know Nothing. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... great cross; "to put to flight all the infernal enemies;" and sprinkled with holy water the beach and adjoining fields. Mass was then sung; Father Junipero preached a sermon; again the roar of cannon and muskets took the place of instrumental music; and the function was concluded with the Te Deum. Though now commonly called Carmelo, or Carmel, from the river across which it looks, and which has thus lent it a memory of the first Christian explorers on the spot, this mission is properly known by the name of San Carlos ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson

... capacities, Ely Ives included that of ceremonial arranger. Festivities were his delight; he was ever on the lookout for occasions of celebration: any excuse for a gratulatory function sufficed him. Before leaving on his chase to Manzanita, he had conceived the festal notion of a dinner in honor of Banneker, not that he cherished any love for him since the episode of the bet with Delavan Eyre, but because his shrewd foresight perceived in it a closer binding ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... compelled to answer the question, What part in the economy of nature is this great central core particularly fitted to perform? What its function among the ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers

... curious medleys of mattresses, chairs and tables, clothing, carpets, kitchen utensils, clocks and pictures, kept moving off. But children played about the streets; girls stood and talked to French and British soldiers; and M. le Maire continued to function. ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)

... in which business transactions are protected against loss by the purchase or sale of "futures", though, of course, there is always a large amount of speculating. Delivery is rarely demanded. The function of the exchange, therefore, is largely that of insurance. The intricacies of this market will be ...
— The Fabric of Civilization - A Short Survey of the Cotton Industry in the United States • Anonymous

... that the most important function of a public journal in any country was the propagating of national feeling and pride in the national name—the keeping the people "in love with their country and its institutions, and shielded from the allurements of alien and inimical systems." He sketched the manner ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... entirety to the gobernadorcillo, or directly to the provincial chief, as happens in that of Tondo. The cabezas are ex-officio attorneys for their barangays in all matters that concern them collectively, and electors of the gobernadorcillos and other officials of justice. For that interesting function, only the twelve oldest men of each town or the substitutes whom the ordinance assigns, have a vote. In some provinces the cabezas appoint only the three who have to compose the terna [i.e., three nominees for any office] for the gobernadorcillo. These, with the outgoing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various

... political church, animadverting on Amaziah, the priest, who would have proved the Bethel worship warrantable, because settled by the royal authority: "It is the king's chapel." Amos, vii. 13. Thus Amaziah, adds Calvin, assigns the king a double function, and maintains it is in his power to transform religion into what shape he pleases, while he charges Amos with disturbing the public repose, and encroaching on the royal prerogative. Calvin zealously reprobates the conduct of those inconsiderate ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... the chapter-house at the canonical hour of tierce, which was nine in the forenoon. At all times the function was a solemn one, even when the culprit might be a villain who was taken poaching on the Abbey estate, or a chapman who had given false measure from his biased scales. But now, when a man of noble birth was to be tried, the whole legal and ecclesiastical ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... is the function of any body appointed for the purpose by the principal Allied and Associated Governments, and not necessarily of the Reparation Commission. But it may be presumed that no second body will be established for this ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... had been his Canonical wife, that Mrs. Parflete was the one child of their union, kept the whole aristocratic assembly thrilled with the sense of taking part in something as distinguished as a Court function, as exciting as a Court scandal, and as bewildering as a Court conspiracy. A string orchestra—conducted by Strauss himself—played French melodies of the eighteenth century. Would there be any dancing? would she sing? Henriette Duboc had been compared, as a dancer, to La Guimard, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... very real function to the teen-agers; it presents varying ideas of what the world in which he will live his adult ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... appointed, who shall have command of all the troops in the State; or the department commander be authorized to assume, by virtue of his command, the function of military governor, which naturally ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... sole aim to produce. After all, what one asks of art is something different from imitative illusion. Its essence is illusion, I think, but illusion taken in a different sense from optical illusion—trompe-l'oeil. Its function is to make dreams seem real, not to recall reality. Monet is enduringly admirable mainly to the painter who envies and endeavors to imitate his wonderful power of technical expression—the thing that occupies most the conscious attention of the true ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell

... all pipes which pass through the roof, if less than 4-inch must be increased to 4-inch. A pipe smaller than 4-inch will be filled with hoar frost during the winter and render the pipe useless to perform its function as a vent pipe. Pipes laid under ground in the Northern States must be at least 4 feet below the surface to protect them from freezing. In the Southern States the frost does not penetrate the ground to such a distance and the pipes can ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble

... purposes of the early colonist; and all men are not alike qualified for giving effect to the hidden capacities of nature. One system of natural advantages is designed to have a long precedency of others; and one race of men is selected and sealed for an eternal preference in this function of colonizing to the very noblest of their brethren. As colonization advances, that ground becomes eligible for culture—that nature becomes full of promise—which in earlier stages of the science was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various

... exact taste, but at an enormous cost. His motion, too, was as graceful as needs be; indeed nature had done well her part, lavishing on his person a goodly number of those endowments so necessary to a modern diplomatist, whose chief function is to ornament the drawing-room, and create a flutter among certain of the fair sex. You must understand that in Europe, as well as America, the corps diplomatic rules the roost of fashion, and, in addition to its enrolling within its precious precincts numbers of the legitimate ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... is beside the point. The girl, Alice, whom you married is like a normal human being in every apparent external respect, yet the organs which gave her life and enabled her to function are like nothing encountered before in human experience. It is imperative that we understand the meaning of this. It is yours to say whether or not ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones

... bed, instinctively following the patch of yellow sunlight as it gilded the gloom, he felt that the maniac next door had the better part. Of what use was reason when it ceased to function except in ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... to descend into the very vitals of your charger and sit throughout the midnight watch, an awed listener to the throbs of the mighty heart that vitalizes his every function, while each vigorously thrusting piston, each smug, palm-rubbing eccentric, each somnolently nodding lever, drives deeper into your lay brain an overwhelming sense of pride in such of your kind as have had the genius to conceive, and such others as ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson

... their lives. Even when they escaped from him, as had happened in the case of Jacqueline, he did not give them up. He commended them to God, and looked forward to the time of their repentance with the patience of a father. The Abbe Bardin had never been willing to exercise any function but that of catechist; he had grown old in the humble rank of third assistant in a great parish, when, with a little ambition, he might have been its rector. "Suffer little children to come unto me," had been ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... again, and the lights came on. They flickered as the boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of the ice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function. ...
— All Day September • Roger Kuykendall

... as close as by sheep and of young clover dug up over every acre of their tilling, welcome the co-operation of sportsmen glad to use up the balance of their cartridges in organised pigeon battues. These gatherings have, during the past five years, become an annual function in parts of Devonshire and the neighbouring counties, and if the bag is somewhat small in proportion to the guns engaged, a wholesome spirit of sport informs those who take part, and there is a curiously utilitarian atmosphere about the proceedings. Everyone seems conscious that, in place of the ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... wrecked for ever. He did suffer from insomnia, even with his splendid sea-seasoned constitution, for months, which proved the poignant insistency of his grief, making thinking a disease instead of a healthy function. He performed his duties mechanically, rigidly, like an engine stoked from the outside. He no longer had pleasure or interest in them. The flavour was gone from life; it had become a necessary burden, to be borne as best he could. At one time he even questioned the right ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... a great function in the Cathedral, at which the whole city assisted. Those who could not get admittance crowded upon the steps, and knelt half way across the Place. It was an occasion long remembered in Semur, though I have heard many say not in itself so impressive as the Te Deum on ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant

... Jahveh. Cruel god of a horde of nomadic invaders settling in a land of farmers, he had his images, ranging in elaboration from an uncut mazzebah or asherah, to a golden bull. He was plural by place and tribe and function. What did the prophetic movement do with his sacred powers? It identified his taboos with a ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... universe; but as a fact to which men must bow, it had enough in common with fatality to demand a philosophy of resignation and to hinder the creation of an optimistic atmosphere of hope. It was this order which kept things in their places, assigned to each its proper sphere and function, and drew a definite line, for instance, between men and gods. Human progress towards perfection—towards an ideal of omniscience, or an ideal of happiness, would have been a breaking down of the bars which divide the human from the divine. ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done: Mine were the very cipher of a function, To fine the faults whose fine stands in record, 40 And let go ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... reason in itself why Commercialism should be false. Commerce and interchange of goods is of course a perfectly natural and healthy function of social life. Indeed, it is a function which should have a most beneficent influence in binding nations together. It is when that function is perverted to private gain that it becomes false. But of course without ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... sovereignty of the man over the woman, of her complete submission to his whims and commands and the absolute dependence upon his name and support. Time and again it has been conclusively proven that the old matrimonial relation restricted woman to the function of man's servant and the bearer of his children. And yet we find many emancipated women who prefer marriage with all its deficiencies to the narrowness of an unmarried life; narrow and unendurable because of the chains of moral ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various

... of a similar tone and character: "A majority of the Senate, whose interference with the preliminary question has, for the best of all reasons, been studiously excluded, anticipate the action of the House of Representatives, assume not only the function which belongs exclusively to that body, but convert themselves into accusers, witnesses, counsel, and judges, and prejudge the whole case; thus presenting the appalling spectacle, in a free state, of judges going ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... the mystery of Space, greater is the mystery of Time; either mystery grows upon man, as man himself grows; and either seems to be a function of the godlike which is in man. In reality the depths and the heights which are in man, the depths by which he searches, the heights by which he aspires, are but projected and made objective externally in the three dimensions of space which are ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... caprice of love! It was not through a coldness of constitution, nor any confederations of her quality and function, which rendered him so content with enjoying no more of her than her conversation; nor that hindered him from taking advantage of many advances she made him, whenever they were alone, of becoming more particular; but it was the progress Elgidia every day ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... Sterne, and Mackenzie were his models. He liked their rounded sentences, and caught their conventional phrases. He found delight in imitating them. He volunteered his services with the pen on behalf of his fellow-swains. He became the "Complete Letter-Writer" of his parish, and was proud of his function and his faculty. He was aware of his "abilities at a billet-doux." To the very last he had a high opinion of himself as a writer of letters. He speaks of one letter being in his "very best manner;" ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... biological diversity; the relative number of species, diverse in form and function, at the genetic, organism, community, and ecosystem level; loss of biodiversity reduces an ecosystem's ability to recover from ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... to say all that there is to say about anything is to show the casement stuck fast, as it were, and themselves battering somewhat desperately to open it. Saying the things "about" is the other people's function. It is as if we suddenly saw a princess come out upon her castle-walls, and hymned that fair emergence, which to ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... probably of the 13th century) stands under a richly-gilt Gothic tabernacle, adorned with figures legibly named on their pedestals. The stained-glass window behind it has a representation of a processional function with the body of the Saint, showing this church, together with a view of the original church of Ste. Genevieve, the remaining tower, and adjacent houses, historically most interesting. The window beyond the shrine also contains the history of Ste. Genevieve—her childhood, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... started to account for variation. Some hold that it is as much the function of the reproductive system to produce individual differences as it is to make the child like the parents. Darwin says "the reproductive system is eminently susceptible to changes in the conditions of life; and to this system being functionally ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... a few evenings after the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown a banquet was given by Washington and his staff to the British commander and his staff. One likes to contemplate the sportsmanship of that function. Amiabilities and good wishes were duly exchanged, and finally Lord Cornwallis rose to present his compliments to Washington. There had been much talk of past campaigning experiences, and Cornwallis, turning ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... the function of race differences up to the present time. What shall be its function in the future? Manifestly some of the great races of today—particularly the Negro race—have not as yet given to civilization the full spiritual message which they are capable of giving. I will not say that the Negro race has ...
— The Conservation of Races - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 2 • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois

... which somewhat later became peculiarly the seat of mixed races. I have spoken of nature-worship as the Pelasgian contribution to the composite Olympian religion. In the Phoenician share we find, as might be expected, both Assyrian and Egyptian elements. The best indication we possess of the Hellenic function is that given by the remarkable prayer of Achilles to Zeus in Iliad, xvi., 233-248. This prayer on the sending forth of Patroclus is the hinge of the whole action of the poem, and is preceded by a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... maintain their hold in this country. In this poem, as indeed in all that Gray ever wrote, we find it his first principle to prefer his subject to himself; he never forgot that while he was a man he was also an artist, and he knew that the function of art was not merely to indulge nature, but to dignify and ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... as to their identity. "Every summer, Digby, Mr. de Pelt's valet, tells me, Mrs. Rockerbilt gives a tea for the benefit of the Fresh-Air Fund, and she always has a dozen of the children from town for a week beforehand so as to get them in shape for the function." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs

... which could exist separately from the others. Although independent in their special action, yet these multiplied lives are nevertheless in a state of absolute and mutual dependence, from the imperative need they have of each other to make them act, each having for its share only one particular function, the effect of which extends to all the others. This is called the division of labor; and if you still do not understand me clearly, I will explain it in another way. The heart sends to all the organs—does it not?—the blood, without which they could ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... Ernest answered doubtfully. 'Do you think it would be quite right, Arthur, for a man to try and earn money by it? Of course it isn't much worse than school-mastering, I dare say; nobody can say he's performing a very useful function for the world by hammering a few lines of Ovid into the skull of poor stupid Blenkinsopp major, who after all will only use what he calls his education, if he uses it in any way at all, to enable him to make rather more money than any other tobacco-pipe manufacturer in the entire trade. Still, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... The printer's function in advertising. Precepts upon which advertising is based. Printer's analysis of his copy. Emphasis, legibility, attention, color. Method of studying advertising typography. Illustrations; review ...
— Compound Words - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #36 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... was a joyous one and accompanied by all that could give cheer to such a function, it had not escaped the old-time shadow. One of the guests straying into the room of ancient and unhallowed memory, the one room which had not been thrown open to the crowd, had been found within five minutes of the ceremony lying on its dolorous hearthstone, dead; and though ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... attention should be directed rather to the giving than the receiving. We must look upon ourselves, not as misers' chests to be kept locked for our own benefit, but as centres of distribution; and the better we fulfil our function as such centres the greater will be the corresponding inflow. If we choke the outlet the current must slacken, and a full and free flow can be obtained only by keeping it open. The spirit of opulence—the ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... that the changes which Hermes undergoes in becoming a Greek from an Egyptian and Phoenician god, are greater than in any other case of adopted tradition In Egypt Hermes is a deity of historical record, and a conductor of the dead to judgment; the Greeks take away much of this historical function, assigning it to the Muses; but, in investing him with the physical power over clouds, they give him that which the Muses disdain,—the power of concealment and of theft. The snatching away by the Harpies is with brute force; but the snatching ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... included an ice-making machine, he also gave us iced champagne every evening. As an example of how thorough the Maharajah was in his arrangements, he had brought three of his mallees, or native gardeners, with him, their sole function being to gather wild jungle-flowers daily, and to decorate the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... the sign of the possibility of motherhood. Realizing this fact, one cannot fail to have a high idea of this function. Most girls, naturally, desire children. Little girls love their doll babies, and spend much time in caring for them, but as girls grow into womanhood they desire real babies. A woman who does not desire ...
— Confidences - Talks With a Young Girl Concerning Herself • Edith B. Lowry

... Terrace was a new delight. Patty had been through the Houses of Parliament before, but this was her first experience of that unique function ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... Libertad, Lambayeque, Lima, Loreto, Madre de Dios, Moquegua, Pasco, Piura, Puno, San Martin, Tacna, Tumbes, Ucayali; note—the 1979 Constitution and legislation enacted from 1987 to 1990 mandate the creation of regions (regiones, singular—region) intended to function eventually as autonomous economic and administrative entities; so far, 12 regions have been constituted from 23 existing departments—Amazonas (from Loreto), Andres Avelino Caceres (from Huanuco, Pasco, Junin), Arequipa (from Arequipa), Chavin (from ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... The second function that developed upon the secretary was the management of the membership lists and matters relating thereto, which, though perhaps essentially a duty of the secretary of an association such as this, had been managed by the treasurer since the time when he took over the duties of the secretary in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... truly descended from the lower creation, it seemed obvious to infer that as had been his origin, so also would be his destiny—the destiny of the beasts that perish. The Kraft und Stoff school of physicists proclaimed aloud that consciousness was only a function of the brain, and would come to a stop together with the mechanism which produced it; as Haeckel expressed it, "The various functions of the soul are bound up with certain special parts of the brain, and cannot be exercised unless these are in a normal condition; if the ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... heat was very great. Mr. D. Smith asked me to "Silver Heights," his place at Winnipeg. H—- and Dick are both rather unwell to-day, and I hear poor Mr. Walter Brown is dying. I am well enough now. It is extremely hot, but there is always air. John has shirked the Toronto function, and also the American Association at Philadelphia—some of the B. A. are starting there soon. We go alone to Toronto, and also to Winnipeg and the Rocky Mountains. Miss Becker and Mrs. Hallett called to see me, and ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh

... were not his business to interest himself in commonplace murder—though this hardly fitted such a description—it was part of the peculiar function which his department exercised to restore to Lady Bartholomew a certain very elaborate snuff-box which he discovered ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... it for importance. Suppose that eating and drinking was never spoken of openly, save in veiled or poetic language, and that no one ever ate food publicly, because it was considered immoral and immodest to reveal the mysteries of this natural function. We know what would occur. A considerable proportion of the community, more especially the more youthful members, possessed by an instinctive and legitimate curiosity, would concentrate their thoughts on the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... time, and again set aside in cool place for at least fifteen minutes. Repeat this until pastry has had seven rolls in all. The object of the cooling between the rolls is to keep Crisco and flour in distinct and separate layers, in which it is the function of the rolling-pin and folding to arrange them, and on which the lightness of ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... usually Tony herself frequented. Larry never did. He hated things of that sort. But Phil was different. He had always liked fun and parties and had always been on hand and in great demand hitherto at every social function from a Ladies' Aid strawberry festival to a grand Masonic ball. It wasn't natural for Phil to shut himself out of things like that. It was a ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... melted into tears, to the amazement of her companions. It was the reverse of the scene of Jephtha on the mountain. The courtesan was afraid of being understood; she ascribed this dreadful dejection to the joy with which she looked forward to the function. As there is certainly as wide a gulf between the habits she had given up and the habits she was acquiring as there is between the savage state and civilization, she had the grace and simplicity and depth which distinguished the wonderful heroine of the American Puritans. She had too, without ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... most extravagant terms declaimed on the wonderful acquisition to the liberty of the press. For my own part I ever was clearly of opinion that this right was inherent in the very constitution of a Jury, and indeed in sense and reason inseparable from their important function. To establish it, therefore, by Statute, is, I think, narrowing its foundation, which is the broad and deep basis of Common Law. Would it not rather weaken the right of primo-geniture, or any other old and universally-acknowledged ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... records of his deeds of savage atrocity, and to show that his claims to that kingdom, which had not a shadow of foundation save from the submission of her Anglo-Norman nobles, almost all of whom were his own vassals and owned estates in England, were just and righteous. Such is not the true function of history. Edward's sole claim to Scotland was that he was determined to unite under his rule England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and he failed because the people of Scotland, deserted as they were by all their ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty

... with extreme rapidity and would have overcrowded the planet had we not learned several things. Our present form of life is immature in many ways. For example, we are totally unable to reproduce our kind. That is the function of the next phase. In this form, however, the intelligence reaches its maximum. As a result, all living creatures, except selected ones, have their growth arrested at the larval stage and pass their entire life in this form. Certain ones at long intervals of time ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek

... physiological changes enter, and these are so subtly related to each other that one always increases the other, until the maximum desire is reached, to which the will must surrender. Nature needs this automatic function; otherwise the vital needs of individual and race might be suppressed by other interests, and neglected. In the case of the sexual instinct, the mutual relations between the various parts of this circulatory process are especially complicated. ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg

... us to appreciate the task which is given to the Cavalry, and to estimate the increased difficulties of their function. As their range of activity has become restricted in certain directions, their sphere of usefulness ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... military and financial concerns of the Huguenots, with other matters of public interest. They were strictly forbidden from intermeddling, under any pretext, with the discharge of civil or criminal justice. This last function was to be referred to the royal courts, save that, instead of appealing to the parliaments, known to be too hostile to Protestantism to afford hope of obtaining justice, arbitrators were to be chosen by the Protestants ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... tortoise-shell box, which the lady presented to him, and inhaled the odor of the lozenges with the air of an amateur who thoroughly appreciated their composition. "They are indeed exquisite," he said; "but as they are necessarily submitted to the process of deglutition—a function which it is frequently impossible for a fainting person to accomplish—I ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... personality, that of Jesus. It sprang out of another religion which had already emerged into the light of world-history. It has been associated for two thousand years with portions of the race which have made achievements in culture and left record of those achievements. It is the function of speculation to interpret this phenomenon. When speculation is tempted to spin by its own processes something which it would set beside this historic magnitude or put in place of it, and still call that Christianity, we must disallow the claim. It was the licence of its speculative ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... generally means the penis; but Dr Gnther says the whelk has no visible organs of generation, though it has a projecting tube by which it takes in water, and the function of this might have been misunderstood. DrG. could suggest nothing for almond, but on looking at the drawing of the male Whelk (Buccinum undatum) creeping, in the Penny Cyclopdia, v.9, p.454, col.2 (art. Entomostomata), it is quite ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... they were supposed to dine twice a term in waistcoats decorated with R.D.C. buttons; the second he named "The Oddfish," a club which was intended to be eccentric, and from the extraordinary colours they adopted I should think they were aptly named. Their chief function was drinking, and although I never went to any of their carousals I believe they discharged it thoroughly. The third club which this energetic man founded was not given up to eating and drinking, but devoted itself to the discussion of moral ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley

... universe presents no dark or mysterious corners, nay, the very negations and contradictions in it are marks of its inherent rationality. But Hegel's rationalism is not of the ordinary shallow kind. Reason he himself distinguishes from understanding. The latter is analytical, its function is to abstract, to define, to compile, to classify. Reason, on the other hand, is synthetic, constructive, inventive. Apart from Hegel's special use of the term, it is this synthetic and creative and imaginative quality pervading his whole ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... remaining unfed! I say, you were appointed to preside over the Distribution and Apportionment of the Wages of Work done; and to see well that there went no labourer without his hire, were it of money-coins, were it of hemp gallows-ropes: that function was yours, and from immemorial time has been; yours, and as yet no other's. These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much, which by the virtual unwritten law of their position they should have remembered: but by any written recognised law ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... there is here a sun-god of the aborigines. He is worshipped in sickness, as is Civa, and propitiated with the sacrifice of a cock, without the intervention of any priest. The cock to Aesculapius ("huic gallinae immolabantur") may have had the same function originally, for the cock is always the sun-bird. Seldom is Vet[a]la personified. When he has an image (and in the North he sometimes has temples) it is that of an armless and legless man; but again he is occasionally represented as a giant 'perfect in all his parts.'[27] ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... ancient Home the "youths used to go into the fields and spend the Calends of May in dancing and singing in honour of Flora, goddess of fruits and flowers." Westermarck seems to think some of these popular customs have something to do with the increase of the sexual function in spring ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... see what corresponds to the lateral ventricles of the cerebrum, with a structure at the bottom corresponding in position and character with the inferior ganglion of the cerebrum. The subdivision of function is similar to that of the cerebrum, the anterior portion of these lobes being of an intellectual, perceptive character, and the posterior the seat of the impulses. This has been demonstrated also in the experiments of vivisectors, in which the irritation ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... the living plant give electric response to a greater or less extent. Some, however, give stronger response than others. In favourable cases, we may have an E.M. variation as high as .1 volt. It must however be remembered that the response, being a function of physiological activity of the plant, is liable to undergo changes at different seasons of the year. Each plant has its particular season of maximum responsiveness. The leaf-stalk of horse-chestnut, ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... should include the unmarried sisters of the bride; but it is considered an anomaly for an elder sister to perform this function. The pleasing novelty for several years past, of an addition to the number of bridesmaids varying from two to eight, and sometimes more, has added greatly to the interest of weddings, the bride being thus enabled to diffuse a portion of her own happiness among the ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... that huge organism and all its animate parts. Therefore he was against war, capital punishment and every kind of killing, not only of human beings, but also of animals. Concerning marriage, too, he had a peculiar idea of his own; he thought that increase was a lower function of man, the highest function being to serve the already existing lives. He found a confirmation of his theory in the fact that there were phacocytes in the blood. Celibates, according to his opinion, were the same as phacocytes, their function being to help the weak ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... ought to know better than to play the tragic-sentimental with me at his time of life! I thought he would accept the situation reasonably and help me to tackle it. Of course it will be simply abominable if I am to meet that girl at every big society function—I don't know what I shall do about it! Why didn't she stay in her old farm-house!—who could ever have imagined her becoming famous! I shall go abroad, I think— that will be the best thing to do. If Blythe leaves ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... the mouth of fame to be blazed abroad proportionable to the height, extent, and measure of the excellency thereof, until preallably I get a wife and make the full half of a married couple. How many times have I heard you say that the function of a magistrate, or office of dignity, discovereth the merits, parts, and endowments of the person so advanced and promoted, and what is in him. That is to say, we are then best able to judge aright of the deservings of a man when he is ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... 16, "to receive a communication concerning grave matters of national policy." The national emergency which had been in existence since Germany began sinking American ships in pursuance of her unrestricted submarine policy was now acknowledged. It would be the function of Congress, if the President so advised, to declare that a state of war existed between the Government of the United States and that of the German Empire. And a waiting and willing nation was left in no doubt that war there would be. The cabinet had become a war cabinet and the country warlike, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen. Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have the royal function pass from father to son! As well declare that a wise man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary administrator is as absurd as ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... inculcated at the nativity of the social group, with other arbitrary laws, in behalf of the race? The fetish of the body. Stark materialism. . . . However, it was not as hard on them as on women outgrown their primary function. Theirs at least the privilege of approach; and their deathless masculine conceit—when all was said, Nature's ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... Oliver Cowdery, the officiating angel, who had been known while a mortal being as John the Baptist, explained that the authority he had imparted did not extend to the laying-on of hands for the bestowal of the Holy Ghost, the latter ordinance being a function of the Higher or Melchizedek Priesthood. Consider the instance of Philip, (not the apostle Philip), whose ordination empowered him to baptize, though a higher authority than his was requisite for the conferring of the Holy Ghost; and consequently the apostles ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... of definite value in enabling the observer to arrive at a conclusion regarding the general mental development of the subject, or to investigate some particular psychological function. A too exclusive dependence upon the result of the application of these tests, especially by a layman, would invariably lead to error. A comprehensive survey is necessary, taking into consideration such factors as family history, environment, physical ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... still much as the builder had left it in the early seventeenth century. Of the double moats which had guarded its more warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served the humble function of a kitchen garden. The inner one was still there, and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in depth, round the whole house. A small stream fed it and continued beyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never ditch-like or unhealthy. The ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that purpose but have only your arms to sell, sell them, sell your labour to the highest bidder, the State will not interfere! Compete among yourselves, contractors! No favour shall be shown, the law of natural selection will take upon itself the function of killing off those who do not keep pace with the progress of industry, and will reward ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin

... of writing. The newspaper office is a little kingdom. The great editor needs to know and does know every range of it between the editorial room, the composing room and the pressroom. He must hold well in hand everybody and every function, having risen, as it were, step-by-step from the ground floor to the roof. He should be level-headed, yet impressionable; sympathetic, yet self-possessed; able quickly to sift, detect and discriminate; of various knowledge, experience and interest; the cackle of the adjacent barnyard the ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... reception given to the Cabinet by Mrs. Atterbury that the rumor of this accredited function came to Jack's ears. "All Richmond" was among the guests. Olympia, in spite of her abhorrence of the cause, couldn't resist a glow of sympathetic admiration of the women who, in dress, in speech, in tact, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... idea of a russet-apple preserved or a whole winter in an attic by some economical housekeeper. Her shoulders were covered with a fringed pelerine, which had nothing at all remarkable about it, but which she wore as if it were a sacerdotal vestment, or the symbol of some high civic function. ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... cannot but remember,) in a 'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it. He was a very learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,' and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson

... of the back? 7. What muscles are we using when we "bat" or "serve" in ball and tennis? 8. How do the muscles of the limbs act for you? 9. Where are the biceps and triceps muscles? Explain their use. 10. What are tendons? What is their use (function)? 11. How is your arm fastened to your body? 12. Describe the arrangement of the muscles in the lower limb. Why are they larger than the arm-muscles? 13. How does exercising the muscles give you an appetite? What else does it do? 14. Why ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... Sundays it was transferred to the village church, and on these days Jack received there with the family. If the truth were told, it would probably have been found that Jack conceived the services to be some sort of function specially designed to do him honor at proper intervals, for he always received an extra petting on these occasions. He sat in the pew beside the deacon through the sermon as decorously as befitted a dog come to years of discretion long since, and wagged his tail in ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis

... my weakness, or my gift, I don't know which, I visualised the story for myself. I really can't help it. And the vision of Mrs Fyne dressed for a rather special afternoon function, engaged in wrestling with a wild-eyed, white-faced girl had a ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... penitentiary, in restoring the guilty. I say, a university, taken in its bare idea, and before we view it as an instrument of the church, has this object and this mission; it contemplates neither moral impression nor mechanical production; it professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in duty; its function is intellectual culture; here it may leave its scholars, and it has done its work when it has done as much as this. It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... became the basis of authority. The earliest expression of this genuinely official principle is found in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. xliv. Upon these officers devolved ultimately not only the disciplinary, financial and liturgical duties referred to, but also the still higher function of instructing their fellow-Christians in God's will and truth, and so they became the substitutes of the apostles, prophets and teachers in all respects (cf. 1 Tim. iii. 2, v. 17; Titus i. 9; Did. 15; 1 Clement 44; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... somewhat abstracted air that Harry acknowledged the salutations of these people, for, truth to tell, his mind and his conscience were being rather severely exercised upon the subject of the function in which he was about to take part. The one great outstanding fact in relation to it was that it was a pagan rite; and he felt that, regarded from an abstract point of view, it was distinctly wrong for him, a professed Christian, to countenance or abet idolatry in any form. Yet he had not been ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... To seek control of so valuable and central a link in a great network of maritime interests was as natural and inevitable to Great Britain a century ago, as it now is to try to dominate the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which fulfil a like function to her Eastern possessions and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... of transparent soaps has recently been fully studied, from a theoretical point of view, by Richardson (J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 1908, pp. 414-20), who concludes that the function of substances inducing transparency, is to produce ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons

... comprehend the exact function and importance of the pedal. Many will be surprised to hear that the word "touch," which they suppose refers to the way the keys are struck by the fingers, has quite as much to do with the feet—that is, the use of the pedal—as with the fingers. No matter how ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... field, MY house, MY vineyard, MY capital,—precisely as the banker's clerk says MY cash-box. In short, THINE and MINE are signs and expressions of personal, but equal, rights; applied to things outside of us, they indicate possession, function, use, not property. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... of his dying for his country the only things to gainsay it. The question was to a certain extent crude, "Why need he be a poet, why need he so specialise?" but if this was so it was only, it was already, symptomatic of the interesting final truth that he was to testify to his function in the unparalleled way. He was going to have the life (the unanimous conspiracy so far achieved that), was going to have it under no more formal guarantee than that of his appetite and genius for it; and this was to help us all to the complete appreciation of him. No single ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... deliberate not about Ends, but Means to Ends. No physician, for instance, deliberates whether he will cure, nor orator whether he will persuade, nor statesman whether he will produce a good constitution, nor in fact any man in any other function about his particular End; but having set before them a certain End they look how and through what means it may be accomplished: if there is a choice of means, they examine further which are easiest and most creditable; or, if there is but one ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... He tells them that if they ask for bread and fish, they won't get stones and snakes (but doesn't say that if you ask for a snake, your Father will be so good as to give it to you); leads them on until they acquire the sense of the need of a larger faith; instructs them that prayer is the function of an organ of the spiritual life, and must be as constant and persistent as breathing or other natural functions, so that men ought always to pray and not to faint, and that they should keep awake at all times praying, if they are ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... light of our modern knowledge of these matters there is nothing in all nature more marvellous than the regular orderly way in which cells reproduce themselves according to fixed laws. Certain cells in the developing embryo, for example, are early set apart for a particular function or for building certain structures, and thereafter are never diverted from this duty so as to do a different work or produce a different kind of structure. In the young embryo certain structures arise at certain predestined times in particular places, and only there and out of these ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... and, finally, to our own British psychologists, Brown, Hamilton, Bain, Spencer, is especially due the merit of seeing the paramount importance of the active side of experience. To this then primarily, and not to any merely {54} intellectual function, we may safely refer ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall

... me back almost into my original difficulties. I find that the rhizoma is entirely covered with ramenta, which are brown, much detached at the base, and obviously represent a low form of leaf, i.e. in appearance, perhaps partly in function, but not in structure. Among these, mature ramenta at the punctas of prolongation, which appear to be very irregular, are concealed, others much smaller, and much narrower, (which bear as obvious a resemblance, or even more so to the male organs of ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... there was scarcely a day when he did not see Jasmine. Also there were few days in the week when Jasmine did not see M. Mennaval, the ambassador for Moravia—not always at her own house, but where the ambassador chanced to be of an evening, at a fashionable restaurant, or at some notable function. This situation had not been difficult to establish; and, once established, meetings between the lady and monsieur were arranged with that skill which belongs to woman ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the peasant beliefs concerning bridges, as, for instance, in Ireland, where on passing over a bridge they invariably pulled off their hats and prayed for the soul of the builder of the bridge,[27] and to the fact that the Romans themselves looked upon bridge-building as a sacred function, and would no doubt use this part of their work to the fullest extent, in order to impress the barbarism opposed to them.[28] The extent of this impression may probably be contained in the old and widely spread nursery rhyme of "London Bridge is Broken Down," ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... bards. It is difficult to say how far this carries us back. The Bards are not to be confounded with the Druids, a religious class from which they were quite distinct. The bards seem to have been the seanachies, antiquaries, poets, and genealogists. It was their special function to compose and to chant verses or rhymes in praise of their heroes or benefactors, and in the absence, so far as we know, of any method of recording past transactions or histories, we may believe ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various

... the jungle is a direct function of human temperament. Where one sees in it naught but a "grim, green sepulcher," teeming with malignant, destructive forces, inimical to health, to tranquillity, to life, another—perhaps a member of the same party—will ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... that ply the turgid Skeena reach the head of navigation. A land-recording office and a mining recorder Hazleton boasted as proof of its civic importance. The mining recorder, who combined in himself many capacities besides his governmental function, undertook to put through Bill's land deal. ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... London and in Paris the young friend's loyalty; none the less sensibly, doubtless, at the moment, that the money was a direct advance on a decent sum for which Peter had long since privately prearranged an ultimate function. Whether by these arts or others, at all events, Lance's just resentment was kept for a season—but only for a season—at bay. The day arrived when he warned his companion that he could hold out—or hold in—no longer. Carrara Lodge had had to listen to another ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.

... function was the vending of cast habiliments. Conceive, Fred, what the fair young creature must have felt at the bare idea of such shocking spousals! She besought, prayed, implored,—but all in vain. Mammon had taken too deep a root in the paternal heart,—the old coronet had been furbished up by means ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various

... beyond that which immediately belongs to the particular service to be performed. If we give a man permission to enter our house to look for thieves, it does not follow that, because so admitted, he has a right to exercise any other function. I do believe that the ship in chase of us, as a public cruiser, ought to be allowed to board this vessel; but finding nothing contrary to the laws of nations about her, that she will have no power to detain or otherwise molest her. Even the right I concede ought to be ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... was incompetent to act with propriety in the high station which she filled; but he would bear it no longer; he would have her to know he was King; he was determined that his authority should be respected; henceforward the Princess should attend at every Court function with the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his life might be spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a regency might be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly to the heiress-presumptive instead ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey

... fact. He is not an Evangelist, nor, in the closest sense, a servant of the coming Christ; for his lowly confession of unworthiness does not imply merely his humility, but accurately defines the limits of his function. It was not for him to bear or to loose that Lord's sandals. There were those who did minister to Him, and the least of those, whose message to the world was 'Christ has come,' had the honour of closer service ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... Red Cross contribution was made in April to the Number Five British Base Hospital. The first American soldiers in France were doctors and nurses. The first American fighting done in France was done with the weapons of pity. The chief function of the American Red Cross up to the present has been to "carry on" and to bridge the gap of unavoidable delays ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... relationship to God, using the well-known Jewish phrase of sonship to describe his possession of the Divine nature in a unique sense, and recalling the utterance of the hour of baptism, to give weight to his assurance that the Father loved Him as Son. Lastly, He believed in the mediatorial function of the Man of Nazareth—that the Father had already given all things into his hand; and that the day was coming when He would sit on the throne of David, yea, on the mediatorial throne itself, King of kings, and Lord of lords, the keys of ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... inverted tops. Their beauty must have been very potent to shine through such a disguise! The profits of the Exhibition amounted to L150,000, which was invested in land in South Kensington. The Crystal Palace exactly suited the taste of the age, and when it had fulfilled the function for which it was primarily intended, the difficulty was to know what to do with it; it was not possible to leave it in the Gardens, so it was finally transported to Sydenham, where it still ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... tokos are closed, and the tradesman sleeps on the floor amid his piled-up wares, for the slumber of Java is too deep to be lightly disturbed, and the solemnity of the long siesta seems regarded almost as a religious function. In this far-off land of dreams it seems "always afternoon," and the complacency wherewith the entire population places itself "hors de combat" becomes a perpetual irritation to the traveller, anxious to seize a golden opportunity of fresh experience. The sun sinks out of sight before ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... I was waiting for," said Mr. Barbecue-Smith. "You ask me what one should do if one hasn't got Inspiration. I answer: you have Inspiration; everyone has Inspiration. It's simply a question of getting it to function." ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... without singularity,—with no other ornament than the quill, which is the badge of his function, stuck behind the dexter ear, and this rather for convenience of having it at hand, when he hath been called away from his desk, and expecteth to resume his seat there again shortly, than from any delight which he taketh in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... thinking himself one and somewhat, withdrew in high choler; had a long PROCES-VERBAL of the thing drawn out; and sent it to the King with eloquent complaint, 'That he had been dishonored in doing the function appointed him.' Friedrich replied as follows: TO THE DOUANIER AT STETTIN: 'The loss of the Excise-dues shall fall to my score; the Dress shall remain with the Princess; the slaps to him who has received them. As to the pretended ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... Letty, and without waiting for an answer kissed his cheek with a pair of lips made on purpose for that little function,—fine, but richly turned out, the corners tucked in with a finish of pretty dimples, the rosebud lips of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... stockings valiantly as usual, making a little ceremony of it, and being careful not to think about Jim's missing one. Indeed, they made rather a function of it, and Leslie demanded one of Nina's baby socks ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... Primmins might not say in his new situation at Abbot's Manor, of his former experiences at Badsworth Hall? And so it was with a somewhat heated countenance that Sir Morton endeavoured to allude to a former acquaintance with his hostess at a Foreign Office function. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... uncandid excuse for all this is, that the greater part of these men were put to death for political, not for religious, crimes. That is, a law is first passed, making it high treason for a priest to exercise his function in England, and so, when he is caught and burnt, this is not religious persecution, but an offence against the State. We are, I hope, all too busy to need any answer to such childish, uncandid ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell



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